Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Children trick-or-treating last night in the quaint, historic ‘Old Town’ neighborhood of Canoga Park got more than just candy from one home. At least six parents have come forward telling police they found a peculiar, unnerving note wrapped around a candy bar.

Some Canoga Park trick-or-treaters received a strange letter among the usual candy, expired medicine,
bouillon cubes and Arby's coupons local residents traditionally hand out on Halloween.Photo: LAPD

“It’s concerning, to say the least,” says Capt. Reed Malloy, Community Outreach Support Officer of the LAPD's West Valley Bureau of Trick or Treat Safety, Weird-Things-Given-Out Division. “We're used to seeing Taco Bell hot sauce packets or dog biscuits, usually given out by well-meaning people who just ran out of candy. This could be something different.”

Copies of the rambling, one-page type-written xeroxed missive — English on one side, Spanish on the other — were attached by rubber bands to full-size candy bars, and make bizarre claims ranging from “the suspicious deaths surrounding the feral cats who set up Hillary’s secret Canoga Park email server” to the “old triangular Costco sign” being an “extraterrestrial beacon to summon grays from Planet Shoup.”

Complete text of the mysterious manifesto.

The reverse features roughly the same erratic message in poorly-worded Spanish, as though it were run through a free online translator.

Pasternak. File photo.

Update: Police have determined the ‘manifesto’ was distributed by a Canoga Park resident known locally as a local crackpot and malcontent, Teódor “Ted” Pasternak. “He’s harmless, but we know him well,” Malloy says. “And the candy’s been tested and is safe to eat. But feel free to bring it to the station if you're still worried and we'll, eh, dispose of it for you.”

Reached for comment, Pasternak explained. “I’ve got a pretty bad cold and last night I kind of went overboard on the Venom Black Mamba energy drinks and whatever the DollarTree equivalent of NyQuil is. Halloween night [was] a complete blur.”

“I just want to say that I’m completely mortified by this. This is not like me at all,” he says between sneezes. “I mean, what the hell was I thinking, giving away my entire stockpile of Milky Way Midnights?! Those things are hard to find!”